


IGNITION CLÉ: STEP IN THE STREETLIGHTS

by CHANDELIGHT



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Chan is the big brother of everyone, M/M, Occasional violence, Slow bruning, car races, exo cameo, fluff but also smut, one-sided changlix
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:20:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25878079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CHANDELIGHT/pseuds/CHANDELIGHT
Summary: It was a cool August day when Felix met Chan for the first time, on a plane headed to Seoul whose take-off he’d rather have watched from the ground. At the time, the very fact of having to leave his home country on a permanent basis seemed to be a major worry in his life, and Chan’s gentle smile easily blended with the new chaotic reality, soon forgotten.However, several months in a deeply twisted future, a future made of cold steel and racing cars, Felix finally learned how that smile had slowly grown to be the reason he kept breathing and living his reckless life.Or, in which Felix is a bratty car racer and Chan his mechanic.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	IGNITION CLÉ: STEP IN THE STREETLIGHTS

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is my first fic in a while and also my very first fic for Stray Kids. I sometimes illustrate my stories, if you are interested you can find me on twitter and instagram as Chandelight98. Enjoy!

At first, it was just fun. Then, it became challenge. Challenge soon shifted to full, reckless competition. As competition fueled an ever-growing speed, everyone realized that it was too late to slow down. Yet, nobody said a single word. They kept racing, just like that; till the oddly soothing sound of unrelenting wind, furiously shifting around their steely shells, became an unavoidable, if not necessary, part of their life. And like that, they liked to think of themselves as almighty.

❖

Felix was sixteen when his parents decided to move back to South Korea. Leaving _Seven Hills_ was no easy decision, and yet, it was a decision he had no voice in. While his older sister had been allowed to stay back until graduation, Felix and his younger sibling, Olivia, were forced to get along with the sudden shift in their lives.

The news was brought to him with cold resolution, so cold that whatever objection he had in mind had shattered to frozen pieces even before possibly leaving his lips. His father seldom picked _that_ kind of tone; it carried the same voiceprint as when he was speaking korean, just twisted and bent to unnaturally fit english. Despite it sounding rather unsettling, it succeeded in loading the speech with imperative power.   
No matter how much Felix desired to throw a tantrum, and oh, he did, acceptance treacherously sneaked in his chest before he could entirely process the news. He felt betrayed; by his father, by his mother, by his overly excited sister, and by himself, for not being able to stand up, not even a bit.  
It was the first time setting foot in South Korea for Olivia, and only the second one for Felix who, by the way, very few things recalled of his first trip there, mostly sensations than actual memories, having been barely four at the time.   
The flight was long, and Felix wasn't able to dissipate the lingering feeling of his life being left behind, almost as if somewhat put on a stand-by. For some reason, there was no way he could picture his near future in the new country, and that probably had much to do with the fact that he had always perceived Australia as the main cradle of his own identity.

He spent part of the journey dwelling on all those little thoughts that kept hammering on his wall of certainties, slowly making it tumble down. And maybe the sound of that same wall collapsing was way too loud in his head because he hardly heard the boy when he called him.  
Felix jumped a bit, startled by the unexpected intrusion. A young man was slightly bent toward his seat. He remembered thinking that he had a big nose before anything else, but the thought was quickly washed away by the awkwardness of first encounters.

"I believe these are your earbuds?" The guy said gently, handing him the aforesaid item. He had probably dropped it while dozing off, without realizing.

"Oh...Thank you." He cracked out, voice rough due to the plane’s recycled air. He took the earbuds back and, while doing that, he couldn't help but notice how small his hand looked beside the guy's one. No big deal, though. He had smaller hands than literally anyone.

"You seem distressed." The stranger said again, after a hint of hesitation. "First time flying?"

At that, Felix wasn’t able to reject the annoying feeling ignited by the cheerful tone of the other one, and the reply he provided was slightly snappy.

"Not really my first time flying, but my first time permanently moving to a country I am not familiar with and of which I don’t speak the language? _Deng_ , that’s it. Can you blame me for seeming _distressed_?" He sardonically rolled his tongue around the last world, giving a quick smile right after, just not to sound too salty; the boy didn't seem to notice, though, taking the opportunity to point out some similarity between them, which led him to throw in some lame inspirational talk. Felix stared at him with parted lips, hardly keeping himself from mocking his voice.

"Oh, I felt the same when I first moved to Australia but, let me say this, things will be fine, even though you cannot figure out just yet. I am Chris, by the way."

He then smiled, which made his nose look even wider, in a way that managed to make Felix’s lips bend just a bit, in a guilty display of sympathy.

"I am Felix."

Chris then handed him a piece of paper torn from the corner of his notebook over which he had roughly written his phone number, claiming that if Felix ever felt like adjusting to the new city was too hard, they could just keep in touch and hang out together. He smiled at him one last time before laying back in his seat and starting to tap on his keyboard. Felix recalled him softly humming to an unknown tune every now and then, unintentionally lulling him to sleep.   
He closed his eyes, surrendering to the flogged tiredness that had haunted him since the morning, and drifted into a comfortable slumber which lasted for the rest of the flight, only waking up after the plane had already landed, his mom gently tapping on his shoulder. At that time, Chris was gone, his seat empty and no remaining evidence that he had ever been there. Or at least that was the impression Felix got in the cocooned numbness that always stuck to his limbs after a bad sleep.   
As he got up, knees weak and head aching in the attempt to tune out the flight attendants’ overly cheerful greetings, he spotted a faint glimmer at the corner of his vision. He instinctively reached out toward what had been Chris’s seat where, nestled in the seat’s fabric creases, a silver earring was stuck.   
He picked it up carefully, his mind recalling a glint of white teeth, big nose, and the silver thingy wobbling at the side. It was just a simple ring, nothing particularly fancy, but it somewhat held a fine-quality look. So, without a second thought, Felix let the item slide in his back pocket and hurried toward the exit.

❖

Settling down was hard. As an introvert who never before had to deal with the upsetting feeling of being thrown in an entirely new world and expected to adapt right away, Felix felt lost. His scarce korean skills did not help either but, he had to admit, they were the reason why he eventually managed to make some friends.   
While trying his best not to fail the year, Felix attended intensive korean language classes, and also decided to enroll for the language exchange meetings as a way to earn extra credits. As an english native speaker, he found himself being highly requested among the students in the program, but a boy in particular seemed to be determined to win him as a permanent match.

Hwang Hyunjin carried the ultimate bratty guy vibe but he was, in fact, quite the polite and smart type instead. Not that this made his cheeky side any less real. He was determined to hit his goals and, apparently, learning english was one of those.   
They got along well from the very beginning. Although at first the language barrier made things awkward, Hyunjin’s stubbornness brought them to soon hit the line of close friendship, over which Felix walked with pride.   
They hanged out together quite often, and Felix soon started to think of himself as Hyunjin’s favorite, although the other still managed to maintain a pretty wide range of friends, as he took interest in many activities, being the social butterfly he was.   
He was, as a matter of fact, enrolled in the dance club, he took part in the student council for events organization, and also managed to get picked as the youngest member of the swimming team. All of those bounds resulted in Hyunjin greeting and exchanging pats on the back with a bunch of people wherever he went.   
On the other hand, Felix found it hard to make new friends, as no one ever happened to stumble beyond his boundaries with Hyunjin’s same enthusiasm, and therefore most of his acquaintances remained so through time.

"You know, I really think you should join some club. That’d be a nice way to get to know new people." Hyunjin casually told him one day. They were sitting on the pool grandstands, the older, having just finished his practice, was lazily toweling his wet, long hair.

"I don’t feel comfortable enough with my korean, yet."

"What _mate_ , your korean is fine and you don’t necessarily need it; take the swimming club, for instance,” He shortly gestured at the pool, “you can hardly breath while swimming, let alone talk! This is just called social laziness. Besides, half of my english blabbering is total crap. You don’t have any valid reason to feel more comfortable with me than with any other good-enough english speaker. "

Felix smiled. Hyunjin's pronunciation dangerously leaned toward an australian accent, but he couldn’t feel any less guilty about it. Hyunjin, for its part, did nothing to get rid of the foreign cadence, and just kept shoving random slang words(not to speak of the word “mate”) in his speech whenever he had the chance.

"Hey, are you trying to get rid of me?" He teased, lowkey trying to buy time, while Hyunjin rummaged in his bag, eventually fishing for two chocopies and handing one to Felix.

"I am just saying that for you. Didn't you have that one Australian _bro_ you met on the plane, though?”

Felix blinked; without saying a word he opened the contacts tab on his phone, quickly scrolling through the numbers. He already knew he didn’t have it saved. He _never_ actually saved the number because he never _seriously_ considered reaching out to Chris. He was a stranger to him, after all, and Felix wasn’t the outgoing type. Regardless of that first surge of sympathy through which Chris had tried to befriend him, the momentum was long lost and forgotten, sunk in the looseness of time passing by.

"Right. I almost forgot about that..." he whispered, barely audible and more to himself than Hyunjin. He couldn’t even recall telling Hyunjin about the encounter. It had been months.

"What was his name, again?"

"Chris...I think it's short for Christopher."

Felix tried to recall the guy’s face, and the realization that he actually couldn’t sent a slight pang of regret through his chest. The more he strived, the more he found himself unable to picture an accurate image, just blurry memories framed by the flash of a warm smile coming back to his mind. Did he even bother to take a proper look at him?   
Suddenly, he felt very much aware that, somewhere lost in the unspoken mess of his desk’s drawer, a small, silver, ring-shaped earring lied forgotten, alongside the tiny piece of paper with the phone number hurriedly scribbled on it.

"Why don't you reach out to him?" Hyunjin said out of the blue, and Felix did see that coming, still, he hadn’t a proper excuse.

"I don't know about that." He thought of it for a few seconds and then looked back at Hyunjin. “Do you think he was being serious when he told me we could hang out? Like, wasn’t he saying that out of courtesy or something?”

Hyunjin shrugged. “I mean, _mate_ , I _dunno_. If he wasn’t being serious, why giving you his number? You can try and send a message. At worst he’ll leave you on read, right?”

“I guess so.”

Felix scoffed, shaking his head. Hyunjin always seemed so relaxed about literally anything. He hardly ever saw him in a state that was not laid-back “whateverness”, as he liked to call it.

“Hey.” Hyunjin said absentmindedly, finally putting his towel around his neck and keeping it there. “I was thinking: what about we dye your hair?”

Felix blinked, locking his phone and glancing up at his friend.

“Why would I do that?”

“Dunno _mate_. I guess it’d be cool. What do you think my popularity is due to?” He laughed, running a hand through his long honey-blonde locks and making a show out of it.

“My mom will kill me, but I’ll end up getting along with your dumb shit anyway, so...”

With that, Chris was forgotten once again.

❖

Felix had a ripped plastic bag wrapped around his shoulders and Hyunjin’s gloved hands nestled deep in his hair the next time Chris came to his mind. They decided to go for an ash blonde dye in the end, way lighter than Hyunjin’s, but somewhat still in the span of natural-looking shades.   
He was fighting the need to doze off as Hyunjin, sitting on the closed toilet and tongue out in concentration, massaged the dye through his hair. He thought he had found a good distraction when his phone buzzed. He was not a very keen social media user, and even a single notification did stir his curiosity. Yet, most of the time it ended up being ads or content suggestions, and nothing consistent for him to get entertained with. He briefly scrolled through his Instagram feed, chuckling at Hyunjin’s latest stories, and then switched to Facebook, where the notification icon was fleshing a small, red “1” number. Facebook was letting him know that Hyunjin would have been seventeen in two days.  
Felix was ready to end his unsatisfactory little social inspection when something caught his attention. In the lower stripe of his phone screen, among the “suggested” section, a profile with the name “Christopher Bang” stood out.

He hurriedly tapped on it. The profile pic was quite useless to identification, since it portrayed a guy holding a guitar and wearing a sweater with its hood pulled up to cover most of his face. Moreover, Felix had no knowledge of Chris’s actual surname. The few pictures uploaded were quite old, and the profile’s privacy was set to leave just basic informations visible, but among them, the home city one still said _Sidney_ , _Australia_.   
Of course, that could have been a coincidence, a remarkable and unexpected one, but still a coincidence, hadn’t Felix noticed a friendship in common with that Christopher Bang dude, said friendship being no less than Hwang Hyunjin.

Now, Felix thought, the possibilities were countless. They didn’t necessarily have to be friends. Maybe they were just acquaintances, maybe they didn’t even know each other firsthand, but that little, virtual connection, could not be totally meaningless.  
Hyunjin had to be at least vaguely aware of this person’s existence and chances he was oblivious about him being Australian, or at least somehow bound to the country, well, they were as thin as paper. Then, why hadn’t he never mentioned him to Felix?

Felix had progressively crouched down, almost as wanting to crawl back into an inexistent shell, afraid that Hyunjin could peek at his phone. For some reason he didn’t want the boy _to know he knew_ just yet, to avoid any kind of confrontation on the topic. And why was that, one would want to ask, and Felix did too, with a pretty much bold and prompt reply being flashed back to his brain.   
The thing was, he didn’t want to know why they knew each other, if they did. And if they did, he didn’t want to know, either.   
Realization hit his heart at the same time the dye brush Hyunjin was holding hit the back of his head, followed by a mumbled apology from his friend. He was afraid of knowing that Hyunjin had already stolen what could have been an exclusive friendship for him. An exclusive friendship with someone who came straight from the world he still very much missed. To put it in other words, he was jealous of a person he didn’t even know.   
Felix felt bad right after processing all those thoughts, as Hyunjin had never been anything but gentle and supportive to him. But that made him nonetheless realize that, after all, he really needed to get to know new people. As the idea comfortably settled in him, he hit the “Add” button. Then, he let his phone slide in his pocket.

With that, he forgot about Chris for the third time.

❖

Hyunjin’s birthday was the first late-night friends gathering he was going to attend after a pretty long time. Not that he had had many similar occasions back in Australia, being not even seventeen. Even though, to be fair, it was a gathering of Hyunjin’s closest friends, and he had met less than half of them before, Felix found himself excited to go. He had needed so much a night out to release the stress collected in the last few months without actually realizing, that the thrill of anticipation made him feel lightheaded.   
Despite his parents had been reluctant to let him go, as Hyunjin was known to have many older friends and a naughty turn of events involving underage drinking was feared, they also trusted the guy enough to give Felix permission, in the end. Knowing that their son was finally getting the chance to enjoy a korean-style barbecue night also had had a consistent role in the decision-making.

And there was Felix, with his freshly dyed hair, wearing a leather jacket Hyunjin let him borrow, and for the first time, feeling confident enough to acknowledge that this place too, could be considered _home_.   
It was mid-March and the night air was chilly yet pleasurable, the warmth of the approaching summer already lingering over Seoul, enveloping the city in quiet anticipation. Hyunjin met him at the nearest subway station, making his presence known by waving widely with both his arms. He had his long hair messily disheveled and hovering on his smooth forehead, his thin legs faintly bouncing under his weight. He looked especially lanky with his favorite jeans wrapping up his thighs.

“ _G’day mate!_ ” He screamed over the shattered music fragments that kept darting between them from the nearby restaurants. The surroundings smelled like weekend. Felix didn’t know how to explain that weird phenomenon but, one thing he had grown accustomed to love about Seoul, was that you could _literally_ smell weekdays in the air.

“Oi, birthday boy!” Felix replied, screaming cockily and purposedly stressing his accent to match Hyunjin’s, “How ya’ doin’ tonight?!”

They both laughed at their silliness and then headed for the subway, casually chatting about the evening’s plan.

“Oh, hey, listen” Hyunjin started once they had walked past the barriers, using korean this time, which made his voice sound more formal than usual. “One of my friends, you know, he’s gay. Is that a problem?”

Hyunjin was looking at him with piercing eyes. It was not a problem, in fact, but his gaze was somewhat defensive, and pointy enough to make Felix feel uncomfortable.

“Man, I came here from a pretty gay-friendly country, you know that?” He replied. Then, noticing just a slightly bit of uncertainty lingering in Hyunjin’s gaze, he reached out to touch his shoulder. “You can trust me on this.”

Hyunjin’s face softened visibly as he relaxed. He smiled back and then shook his head. “Just had to make sure. I did not expect anything different from you tho, buddy”.

Felix avoided telling Hyunjin he himself had been stuck, if not in a gay, at least in a bi-curious limb of doubt for a while now; that felt like a sleepover confession more than a birthday party one, and he didn’t want to weigh down the night.

As the train was approaching, a cheerful tune started playing, filling the venue, and both the boys approached the doors, quickly switching the topic.

That was the night Felix met Changbin.


End file.
